Tim's origin but with a little more SPICE:
It's been weeks since Tim started following Batman. When he began, it was with a determination to help right a wrong, to help his heroes in some way during this trying times.
Who'd have thought that seeing your city's hero repeatedly beat up petty criminals to pulps was a traumatizing experience for a thirteen year old. What courage he'd gained to do something, had been steadily chipped away and Tim is now in an impasse.
Taking pictures. Documenting the man's decent. And, if he was honest with himself.... well, it's looking more and more like evidence.
Evidence against Batman.
Oh my god.
Tim is both a stalker and a clean-up crew simultaneously, he feels like. But rather feeling good at being helpful to heroes, this feels more akin to helping cover up. Even though he isn't.
If anything, calling ambulances to report Batman's victims is the opposite. Tim feels acutely aware of how Batman's ledger is filling up. Records being taken and, therefore, evidence piling up.
It's all evidence, everything is, if you use it the right way. That's what Tim has learned following Batman's cases -not that it's ever under his name seeing as he is a vigilante and finding which ones have his style is detective work in itself.
This time though, it's different.
Oh god it's different, Tim feels himself panicking, wondering what was different that was making him even more vicious than he usually already is.
Not his parent's death anniversary. Or their anniversary. Not Harvey's turning either.
Way too soon to be Jason's death anniversary. Not his birthday either.
Tim wracked his mind trying to figure out what made this petty car jacker special. Different. Worse.
Tim press his back on the filthy rooftop, hands over his mouth, blinking tears from his eyes, listening to a stranger beg mercy from a.... hero? A criminal disguised as a hero? A villain disguised as a hero?
A grieving man.
Later, Tim will wonder what he could've done better; many things.
If he'd just moved immediately after Batman left, if his legs would've stopped shaking sooner, if he swallowed his bile, if he. Just. Moved.
If he hadn't waited seconds and then minutes after hearing the silence, then maybe...
The man is dead.
Or, he's dying.
Tim had called the ambulance, stumbled his way down the fire exit, and discovered the man fading.
Tim was too shocked to have the mind to exit the premises before the medics arrived.
He shouldn't have been.
He KNEW Batman was getting worse and worse. He didn't stop earlier, hadn't given up the mantle when his son died, he's not going to do it now. There was only one way to go now from there. Down.
Worse and worse until it's the worst.
They got the man back again.
Tim curls up in his seat in the ambulance. Watching.
Tim curls up in his seat in the hospital, barred from the operating room. Listening.
The man flatlined two more times -three all in all-, that's what he'd gathered from hushed whispers he can barely hear in the natural bustle of a hospital. 'Three times the charm' they say. Tim wonders in what way, in this case. Someone gives him a hot cocoa together with the blanket he'd been wrapped in by the first responders.
Someone's going to ask him questions, they say. They're just late a bit, they say.
Typical.
Tim would be gone before anyone arrives. If nothing else, his parents finding out about any of this, is enough to knock some sense into him. He doesn't know them that well, but at the very least, anyone even remotely sane would be Displeased with a capital D.
So he knows he shouldn't have, but he needed to go home. And he needed to see him before or he's not getting any sleep.
Tim sneaks into the room, sees the man attached to tubes and a heart monitor. He's alive. Barely. But he is.
Tim goes home and can't sleep.
The next day, he visits.
He doesn't even attempt the front desk and just walks in as if he'd just gone out for some air five minutes ago. He's sweating cold sweat the whole time.
He's not lying, he tells himself. He can't lie if no one's asking. It's fine. Everything's fine.
Except everything, you know.
Tim is shocked to find the man conscious. He almost runs back out but the man calls out a faint 'hey'.
He can't talk much, too damaged to do so. He doesn't ask Tim's name or what the hell he's doing there. Just asked him to pray for him.
Tim has never prayed a day in his life. He looks it up on Waynet.
Anxiously glancing at the door as he reads and recites as instructed.
Then the man talks about a sick brother. An overworked sister. If he can check up on them, please.
Tim has no idea why he'd ask a kid that, a stranger to boot, but he figures thirteen year olds from Crime Alley were just a different breed. It was nice watching and admiring from afar, but Tim can't imagine doing any of the death defying stunts Jason did on the regular.
Tim can't help repeating his name in his head though. His and his sister and brother.
He checks on them and returns to tell the man that they were alive and Tim also just signed them up for weekly groceries and medicine from his not inconsiderable allowance. No matter what walk of life you are, Tim at least knows that unsolicited help are usually unsolicited for a reason so he's not going to push. Much.
He was already there, you can't expect him not to do anything.
The man died.
They're trying to revive him again.
Tim can't bring himself to stay.
(To wait until the name Derek is written beside a time and date in one of those medical bracelets he'd never thought to ask the name of.)
But he makes a silent promise.
He's going to stop this.
Tim is going to do something.
Naturally, as any law-abiding thirteen year old, by 'doing something' his first thoughts are calling the authorities to sic them on Wayne manor with all the photos, and now evidence, he'd collected through the years.
Yeah, Tim chickened out.
Because reviewing all the photos, Batman is crying.
Crying while he beat up young men who are older brothers, but crying. Batman is broken.
In the past, if someone or something in Gotham is broken, you know Batman and Robin will be on it.
Robin has been shattered and Batman is broken. Who will be 'on it' this time? When the heroes need heroes, who will be there to catch them?
So. Yeah.
Plan B, is to give Batman time to recover. Preferably without Batman. Batman is justice and vengeance and the violence the police can't deal out. Violence for the greater good, but violence. That can easily go overboard, as he'd repeatedly witnessed.
There used to be less violence and more talking. When Batman had a Robin to be mindful of.
Tim needed Bruce to quit Batman.
Somehow without inadvertently burning down Gotham with supervillains let loose. Maybe a vacation. Tim can... convince him to go on a hiatus. There are times when the dark night go one JL missions and the Bats seems to have a system to prevent spikes in crime activities.
Mostly involving Batgirl, Robin, and -to a much lesser extent- Nightwing.
Batgirl is out of commission in what he suspects might be related to Barbara Gordon's injury, though he hasn't had time to confirm it.
Robin is... well.
Nightwing is MIA.
..... Tim will deal with it when the time comes.
The time doesn't come because... well, simply put, no one answered the door. Probably thinking it's more paparazzi -he'd seen the hordes and then regular pesters- so yeah, Tim understands. It's fine.
It's fine.
..... really, it is.
Tim does NOT visit the hospital.
He deactivates the program he'd spent the better part of the day before researching and copy pasting codes that would've sent a timer of five minutes from when activated that, if he didn't regularly enter the code, would automatically send all his pictures to every major news outlet in the entire country.
Clearly, Tim can't do this on his own. In fact, he's been getting a feeling that he shouldn't do this on his own.
Okay.
So if he was Dick Grayson, where would he retreat to grieve his little brother's sudden death.
......... how much is the bus fair again. Would a hundred be enough?
He'll bike it.
For the road trip pack, he's thinking a bag of lays. He'll stab it to get the air out and to be able to fit more in the bag.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Tim close the door behind him, relaxing in the car seat with a sigh. Working in a company was exactly how he'd thought it'd be as a kid.
Something he'd rather not be doing. When was the last time he'd held a camera? Even just his phone camera? That doesn't involve recording evidence in the mask.
"Where to, Mr. Drake-Wayne?"
"Ermmgrgfdbcfb..."
"The penthouse then, after a short driveway. Red Robin or Burger King?"
"Yum."
"Yes sir."
Tim gathers just enough energy to lift his head to look at car mirror, "Thanks Derek. You're the only one who ever understands me."
"I'm sure Mr. Grayson would disagree."
"Disagree all he wants. He gave me the wrong donut once."
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